I suddenly surged upward, gasping when I broke the surface, the air burning as it rushed into my chest; but I wasn’t done yet. I kept flying until I was completely out of the water, landing on the pier in a heap.
I winced as my elbow connected painfully with the wood. I knew my skirt was probably hiked up too high on my thighs, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. I just took a second to enjoy breathing. Eventually, I stopped gulping air and started to breathe normally again.
I sat up and pushed my wet hair out of eyes. Cal was standing a few feet away. I glared at him. “Awesome job with the saving.”
Then I realized Cal wasn’t looking at me, but up toward the head of the pier.
I followed his gaze and saw a slender, dark-haired man. He was standing very still, watching me.
Suddenly, it was hard to breathe all over again.
I rose to my feet on shaky legs, tugging my soaked clothes back into place.
“Are you all right?” the man called out, his face clearly worried. His voice was more powerful than I would’ve expected from such a slight man, and he had a soft British accent.
“I’m fine,” I said, but the black spots were back in front of my eyes, and my knees seemed too wobbly to hold me. The last thing I saw before I fainted was my father walking toward me as I crashed back to the pier.
chapter 2
For the second time in six months, I found myself sitting in Mrs. Casnoff’s office, wrapped in a blanket. The first time had been the night I’d discovered that Archer was a member of L’Occhio di Dio, a group of demon hunters. Now my mom was next to me on the couch, one arm wrapped around my shoulders. My dad was standing by Mrs. Casnoff’s desk, holding a manila folder overflowing with papers, while Mrs. Casnoff sat behind that desk in her great purple throne of a chair.
The only sounds were Dad flipping through all that paper and my teeth chattering, so I finally said, “Why couldn’t my magic get me out of the water?”
Mrs. Casnoff looked up at me like she’d forgotten I was even in the room. “No demon could escape from that particular pond,” she answered in her velvety voice.
“There are protection spells in it. It…holds anything it doesn’t recognize as a witch, faerie, or shifter.”
I thought of the skull and nodded, wishing for some of that spiked tea I’d had last time I was here. “I kind of figured that. So the Vandy was trying to kill me?”
Mrs. Casnoff’s lips puckered a little. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said. “Clarice didn’t know about the protection spells.”
She might’ve been a little more believable if her eyes hadn’t slid away from mine as she’d said that, but before I could press the issue, Dad tossed the folder down on Mrs. Casnoff’s desk and said, “Quite an impressive file you’ve amassed, Sophia.” Clasping his hands, he added, “If Hecate offered classes in complete mayhem, I have no doubt you’d be valedictorian.”
Nice to see where I got my snarkiness. Of course, that seemed to be all I’d gotten from him. I’d seen pictures of him before, but this was the first time I’d seen him in person, and I was having a hard time not staring. He was so different from what I expected. He was definitely handsome, but…I don’t know. In a fussy way. He looked like the kind of guy who had a lot of shoe trees.
I glanced over at Mom and saw that she was having the opposite problem from me. She was looking anywhere but at Dad.
“Yeah,” I said, turning my attention back to him. “Last semester was intense.”
Dad raised both eyebrows at me. I wondered if that was on purpose, or if, like me, he couldn’t lift just one. “‘Intense?’” He picked up the file again and studied it over the top of his glasses. “On your first day at Hecate, you were attacked by a werewolf….”
“It wasn’t really an attack,” I muttered, but no one seemed to pay any attention.
“But of course, that’s paltry compared to what came after.” Dad flipped through the pages. “You insulted a teacher, which resulted in semester-long cellar duty with one Archer Cross. According to Mrs. Casnoff’s notes on the situation, the two of you became ‘close.’” He paused. “Is that an accurate description of your relationship with Mr. Cross?”
“Sure,” I said through clenched teeth.
Dad turned another page. “Well, apparently you two were…close enough that at some point you were able to see the mark of L’Occhio di Dio on his chest.”
I flushed at that, and felt Mom’s arm tighten around me. Over the past six months, I’d filled her in on a lot of the story with Archer, but not all of it.
Specifically, not the whole me-making-out-in-the-cellar-with-him part.
“Now, for most people, nearly being murdered by a warlock working with the Eye would be enough excitement for one semester. But you also became involved with a coven of dark witches led by”—he ran his finger along the page—“ah, Elodie Parris. Miss Parris and her friends, Anna Gilroy and Chaston Burnett, murdered the other member of their coven, Holly Mitchell, and raised a demon who just happened to be your great-grandmother, Alice Barrow.”
My stomach twisted. I’d spent the past six months trying not to think about all that had happened last fall. To have it all read out to me in Dad’s emotionless voice…well, let’s just say I was beginning to wish I’d stayed in the pond.
“After Alice attacked Chaston and Anna, she killed Elodie, and then you killed her.”
I saw his eyes drift from the paper and to my right hand. A puckered scar ran across my palm, a souvenir of that night. Demonglass leaves quite a mark.
Clearing his throat, Dad dropped the papers. “So yes, Sophia, I would agree that you did have quite the intense semester. Ironic considering the fact that I sent you here to be safe.”
Sixteen years’ worth of questions and accusations flooded my brain, and I heard myself snap, “Which I might have been if someone had filled me in on the whole my being a demon thing.”
Behind Dad, Mrs. Casnoff frowned, and I thought I was about to get a lecture on respecting one’s elders, but Dad just watched me with those blue eyes—my eyes—and gave a tiny smile. “Touché.”
The smile threw me, and I looked at the floor when I said, “So are you here to take me to London? I’ve been waiting since November.”
“We can discuss that at some point, yes. But first I’d like to hear about the events of last semester from your perspective. I’d like to hear about the Cross boy.”
Resentment surged up in me, and I shook my head. “No way. You want those stories, you can read the accounts I wrote up for the Council. Or you can talk to Mrs. Casnoff, or Mom, or any of the other people I’ve told the story to.”
“Sophia, I understand that you’re angry—”
“It’s Sophie. No one calls me Sophia.”
His lips thinned. “Very well. Sophie, while your frustration is perfectly valid, it’s not helpful at this moment. I’d like to spend time talking with you and your mother”—his eyes flickered to Mom—“as a family before we proceed to the subject of your going through the Removal.”
“Too bad,” I retorted, tossing off the blanket and Mom’s arm. “You’ve had sixteen years to talk to us as a family. I didn’t ask you to come here because you’re my dad and I wanted some kind of tearful reunion. I asked you to come here as head of the Council so I can get my stupid powers removed.”
All of that came out in a rush. I was afraid if I slowed down, I might start crying, and I’d done enough of that over the past few months.
Dad studied me, but his eyes had gone cold, and his voice was stern when he said, “In that case, in my capacity as head of the Council, I reject your request to go through the Removal.”
I stared at him, dumbfounded. “You can’t do that!”
“Actually, Sophie, he can,” Mrs. Casnoff interjected. “Both as head of the Council and as your father, he’s well within his rights. At least until you’re eighteen.”
“That’s over a year away!”
